Category: Games

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Games Toys Weird and wonderful gifts

Weird and Wonderful Gifts: MONSTER expansion perfects “Ticket to Ride”

IMG_4099My son is a game-nerd and a bit of his zeal has rubbed off on me. But where William geeks out over rule-set elegance and game re-playability, I am truly a sucker for nifty game pieces and beautiful boards. And monsters. A game without a monster just isn’t much of a game.

That’s why I am so pleased with the Alvin And Dexter expansion to the classic game Ticket to Ride. I can’t believe TtR already celebrating it’s 10th anniversary, but if you haven’t yet played it, Ticket To Ride is a fun tabletop game where players compete to build cross-country rail lines. It has a great board and especially cool train car game pieces. But until this expansion, there were no monsters.

Alvin is a blaster-toting space alien and Dexter is a voracious giant lizard. The pieces for these non-player characters are beautifully sculpted and cast in beige resin that shows off their detail. I bought the expansion purely because I loved the figures, but when I realized what these critters bring to the game, I believe I could convince my son that the purchase was essential. In the stock version of Ticket to Ride, the competitive element is rather subdued. Sure, a player could block a key segment of rail when it becomes evident that a competitor is building a connecting route, but the game is woefully good natured. Alvin and Dexter shake things up on a much grander scale. I might be expecting too much from the monsters, but they seem to me to be the very best type of game expansion, the one that reimagines both the game and the strategies needed to win, which can be like playing a brand new game.

Games are perennially popular gifts because the best ones can give a family or group of friends hours of fun together. I’m excited to share this gift with William, so we can enjoy some fresh game play together. And maybe this time I’ll win. IMG_4094

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Games Other Haunts

“Better to Reign in Hell than Serve in Heaven…”

Elsa got me fairly ADDICTED to this cute, quirky on-line game called Glitch. You do all sorts of weird stuff like milk butterflies to make butter and later, cheese or squeeze chickens to get grain. Even the pigs will let you nibble on them if you pet them first. It’s certainly WEIRD but perhaps not exactly DailyNightmare material…

…with the exception of, well, Hell. If you let your energy levels slip to zero, you go to Hell. But Hell is not all that bad. You can earn your way out by squishing Hell grapes and if you find your way to the end of Hell, there’s even a bar! He’re a shot of my Glitch character astride a floating island in the depths of Hell. Both weird and creepy.

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Games

“Haunts: Danse Macabre” – a turn-based haunted house game on Kickstarter

Micro-funding of niche projects like creepy video games just warms my heart. Amp up that warmth when the project is Creative Commons licensed and even available for linux. So dig “Haunts” a turn-based haunted house game currently soliciting funds for finishing on Kickstarter. Every $5 gets a download code for the game; larger donations get more codes plus the typical silly perks. The game itself looks fun with a style reminiscent of Gorey. Readers of The DailyNightmare might note that players can select portraying the human adventurers who discover the house OR the creepy denizens who would rather just be left alone.

The company, Mob Rules Games, operates with a radically transparent business model and is documenting the development of the game rather publically with lots of behind the scenes bits and pieces. To be brutally frank, it’s good to know that they have a business model since some of the projects on micro-funding sites seem devised without a speck of realistic financial savvy. Since Haunts has been in development for several months already, they appear to be on track to ship an actual product. Donations for these kind of projects work out to be more pre-orders than risky venture capital investments.

So send ’em a few bucks. $5 is barely what a double-mocha-cappu-frappa coffee costs these days.

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Games

“Zombies, Run” iPhone app – UPDATE

It’s official: this game still rocks. When I first dl’ed it a few weeks ago, I half expected “Zombies, Run” to be a clever idea that didn’t quite deliver more than a one hit spin on exercise motivation. And that was going to be fine with me. I already knew I needed to get more exercise and if “Zombies, Run” just gave me the initial kick to get started, it would have done enough.

It’s done more. The little app has maintained my interest and actually spurred me to exercise longer and more frequently than I’d originally planned. I planned to be doing a “mission” that is 30:00 or so three times a week. Last week for instance, I exerecised six times. I’m also exercising for longer than my original plan. Today, I’m recovering from 46:00 minutes.

In particular the app helps in two key areas. The first problem area for me is that first 5 minutes. The drudgery is in full effect while none of the endorphins have kicked in. Pre-Zombies, this was a time when I frequently would stop. Now there is a thread of narrative interest that keeps me htting the pedals. (OK, so I “cheat” — I’m using an indoor stationary bike instead of actual running.) The other problem area occurs at the end of the workout. There’s an option in the app to select workouts of about 30 minutes or about an hour. 30 minutes are getting a bit too easy for me and though there’s a clear sense of closure when the “mission” in complete, the app switches seamlessly into “radio mode” where I can continue running while listening to DJs from my beloved zombie-ridden town. And most important, I can continue to gather supplies for this beleaguered encampment. That supply-gathering aspect is the game part of the app. Every tin of food or discarded mobile phone that I retrieve helps contribute to my town’s vitality.

And there continues to be some nice serendipitous corelations between the songs in my playlist and the zombie menace. A few that come to mind are:

• “Those are People who Died” by Jim Carroll
• “Be My Frankenstein” by Otis Taylor (the refrain is “Just wanna live another day”)
• “Can’t Get You Out of my Head” by Kylie Minogue (a guilty pleasure — don’t judge me! — but given the zombie context I imagine the undead trying to crack into ones skull to feast on the goo inside.)
• “Crawling from the Wreckage” by Dave Edmunds (especially for the beginning where “Runner 5” emerges from a crashed helicopter)
• “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” by Johnny Cash (the zombie tie-in is that it was used in the remake of “Dawn of the Dead” as the opening credit sequence, as I recall.)
• “It’s the End of the World as We Know it” by R.E.M.
• “Nemesis” by Shreikback
• “Run to the Hills” by Iron Maiden
• “Survivalism” by Nine Inch Nails

etc.

If I keep this up, I’ll be ready for 5K season in no time. And I’ll have honed a survival skill for the zombie apocalypse.

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Games

“Zombies, Run” = an iPhone App You’ll Need to SURVIVE

Though I have no enduring love for the undead, I basically adore the iOS App “Zombies, Run” a fitness game that fuel-injects a bit of narrative into the brain-eating monotony that aerobic exercise so easily becomes. The premise is simple: you are the sole survivor of a helicopter crash after the zombipocalypse and your objective is to run — literally, run — around picking up supplies that are needed at your home base. Game play is a series of audio tracks that are interspersed among the tracks of your standard workout mix but once back at the base, you can assign the assets you’ve picked up.

TIP: Make a workout mix rich in creepy, high energy tracks. The first time I was warned of an imminent zombie attack and counseled to sprint, serendipitously the track “Be My Frankenstein” by Otis Taylor came on. It’s refrain is “Just wann live another day” and the icy guitar work was a perfect motivator to avoid the imaginary menace. My existing workout mix is fine but a good playlist would really augment this game. I’m going to have to listen to those good ol’ Rue Morgue Radio broadcasts to come up with more tunes for future “missions.”

The app struck me as a bit pricey, $7.99 but then again, I’m a cheapskate. However, I bought it without a second thought because I have the body of a middle-aged geek and I needed something to ressurect my fitness regimine after a long winter nap. “Zombies, Run” is very likely going to do that. I wasn’t ready to strap on running shoes today — my excuse was the spring rain plus my fear that I’d injure myself early in process and have to sit out while I healed — so I played the game while on my stationary bike. Some features weren’t accessible like the ones that are based on the accelerometer — presumably when the radio operator exhorts a boost of speed to escape an unexpected pocket of undead, the iPhone actually senses that effort. Cool beans, eh? Even without the machine keeping watch, I still cranked it during those close scrapes. I was just going to kick the tires with an easy spin but I found myself completing the whole first mission, a good half hour of workout. I’m dripping in sweat… and ready to play another round.

My suspicion is that if you are reading The Daily Nightmare, you need this app.

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Art Games papercraft

“Fright Factory” Papercraft Box

Everything I loved about this toy when I was a kid is summed up in its name: “Fright Factory.”

Continue reading ““Fright Factory” Papercraft Box”
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Games

Internet Game – “Dark” Movies Hidden in a Painting

I just spent a few enjoyable minutes playing a game at this site:

http://us.mms.com/us/dark/dark_game.jsp

The premise is that there are the names of 50 “dark” movies hidden as allegories and symbols in a painting. Click on the picture, type in the name. Some are pretty obvious; some had me scratching my head… that is, until I slapped my forehead “D’uh!” It’s well worth a look even if the site is a blatant promotion for dark chocolate.

I love how visual puzzles make the brain link words and images in ways that aren’t mere illustration.

By the way, if you need help, post which part and I’ll give you clues.

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Games Other Haunts

Other Haunts — Urban Dead

 

Urban Dead

From time to time, Mrs. Grimgnome is a doctor trapped inside a zombie-plagued town. She travels from building to building, in constant communication with a larger coalition of do-good-ing humans, trying to thwart the zombie menace. My dear wife, you see, is nearly addicted to a free on-line massively multi-player game called “Urban Dead.”

http://www.urbandead.com/

The game is basic, almost simplistic and easily overlooked by those thumb-twitching game-fiends who need flashy graphics to keep their attention. Since it’s web-based – and I know this isn’t unique to Urban Dead – it can be played on ANY computer that can traverse the Weird Wild Web which is refreshing in this era where games frequently require a platform upgrade. The game field is a three by three grid that represents the buildings and areas a player can see out of a relatively large city of Malton. (The Powers-That-Be prudently sealed off Malton shortly after the zombie’s started rising, y’know, to make sure things didn’t get REALLY out of hand.) Details about these areas appear in text and can be enhanced by certain objects, for instance binoculars. But only human players can use objects. Oh yes. In Urban Dead, players can also be zombies. In fact, human players turn into zombies when they are killed. And for that matter, zombies can be turned back into humans at “Revive Points”.

Since the object of the game is ongoing and so broadly construed, player groups have formed with other goals, some extremely idiosyncratic. Some are simple “neighborhood watch” type groups that keep the zombies out. There are zombie-based groups even that try to organize their destruction or give it a peculiar slant. One group, as I remember it, were scholars in life and hence they refuse to kill anyone found in a library, museum or school. A nice twist on the cliched zombie rally call “Brains!” These groups run their own websites that as far as I can see have no connection whatsoever to Kevan Davis, the guy behind Urban Dead. My wife’s group even appears to have a Firefox plugin that allows players to identify other group members in crowds as well as to track other kinds of information. They help each other, patrol their neighborhood of Malton, co-ordinate raids, heck, they might even have raves and tea-parties for all I know.

Kevan Davis keeps the site fun too with upgrades and special limited time events. For instance, on Hallowe’en for one day only, there were trick or treaters out, some wearing costumes, some knocking on heavily barricaded door for the stale candy that was available that day only from mall stores. Weird. But weirdly fun.

There is a relatively detailed WIKI for the game that can be found at:

http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Main_Page

Last year for Christmas, Mrs. Grimgnome got an Urban Dead t-shirt which she loves DEARLY, wears constantly — and washes occasionally. Get one for someone you love.

http://www.cafepress.com/kevandotorg/1180110

Categories
Games Other Haunts

Creepy Fun: Zombies the Card Game

Zombies the Card Game Zombies invaded my household awhile back and occupied my family’s attentions night after night for several weeks. By “zombies” I of course mean the addictively amusing table game from Twilight Creations. I’m not enough of a game aficianado to know the correct term for this kind of game; it is card-based but also has a board that is assembled piece by piece as the game progresses. And the coolest part of the game perhaps are the plastic zombies that serve as obstacles to the players. In the expansion sets, there are even cooler variants of these zombies including glow-in-the-dark “radioactive” zombies and zombie dogs.

The object of the game should be familiar to anyone who knows a thing or two about zombies and that is, brute survival – and since only one person can fly away on that helicopter at the end (the victory condition) the side objective is making sure that other players don’t escape before you do. The theme changes nicely based on the different expansion sets, ranging from Night of the Living Dead (zombies original recipe), Dawn of the Dead (zombies in the mall), Day of the Dead (military zombies) and on to zombie dogs, college zombies and sewer zombies. Our household has got ’em all and they’re all great though the expansion sets, obviously require the original Zombies! game. One piece of advice I’d pass along is to pick up an extra “Bag o’ Zombies.” The number of zombies figures in the starter box isn’t really enough for even a middle sized game. And who wants to run out of zombies?

The artwork on the cards graphically illustrates the action of the card. In fact there are a couple cards whose illustrations are so intense that my daughter insists we take them out of play. The only drawback to the game that we’ve found is that the board sometimes ends up snaking out larger than our table, especially when adding an expansion set. The remedy that we’ve found is to push all the furniture to the edges of the room and play on the floor!

In short, Zombies! is a blast. Games without an expansion set seem to take a little over an hour which is a nice length for an evening’s entertainment — with an expansion set or two… well, don’t start one of those if you don’t want to be occupied til the wee hours. And heck, Zombies! or any table game is a great excuse to shut off the TV and actually look at the members of your household.

http://www.twilightcreationsinc.com/zombies/